Posted: October 16th, 2024

Teaching strategies | Pedagogical approaches

Teaching strategies/ Pedagogical approaches

Active listening: Encouraging children to lead conversations. This approach fosters a sense of agency and confidence in children. Teachers create opportunities for shared, sustained conversations by listening deeply and thoughtfully to what children are saying and actively responding to their contributions.

Challenging: Offering children opportunities to extend their knowledge and skills in the context of secure relationships. By doing so, children feel supported and motivated to explore new ideas. Teachers gauge when to offer challenges and opportunities through provocation and reflection that will extend children’s thinking and learning.

Collaborating: Enabling children to take the lead in their learning while working with them to contribute to, rather than dominate, the direction of the experience. This collaborative approach encourages mutual respect and shared goals. This can also include involving others (e.g., family members and members of the community) who may have particular expertise or knowledge that can inform and support learning.

Direct instruction: Using explicit teaching strategies when other strategies might not be safe or appropriate. This method ensures clarity and understanding in specific contexts.

Encouraging: Making comments that support, motivate, and encourage children to persist. Positive reinforcement helps build resilience and self-esteem.

Explaining: Making ideas and requests clear for children. Clear explanations can demystify complex concepts. This is useful when children want or need to understand a concept or idea.

Gaining prior knowledge: Acquiring information about a child’s previous learning, interests, and individual needs. This knowledge allows for personalized and effective teaching strategies.

Giving feedback: Offering constructive, specific feedback on behaviors or actions. Feedback should be timely and relevant to be most effective.

Holistic, integrated and interconnected approaches: Holistic approaches recognize the integration and connectedness of all dimensions of children’s learning, development, and wellbeing. This perspective ensures a well-rounded educational experience. When educators take a holistic approach, they pay attention to children’s physical, personal, social, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing and cognitive aspects of learning.

Inquiry-based learning: Children pose questions and investigate the answers. This method nurtures curiosity and critical thinking. This allows them to feel in charge of their own learning. Inquiry-based approaches to learning harness this spirit of investigation, creating an interesting, engaging, and meaningful curriculum that uses children’s interests and questions as a starting point for effective learning.

Intentionality: Educators are intentional in all aspects of the curriculum and act deliberately, thoughtfully, and purposefully to support children’s learning through play. Intentional actions are guided by clear objectives and outcomes. They recognize that learning occurs in social contexts and that joint attention, interactions, conversations, and shared thinking are vitally important for learning.

Labelling: Labelling emotions expands children’s emotional vocabulary. This practice aids in emotional intelligence and empathy. Further, identifying emotions is also useful for learning to read other people and what they might be feeling.

Making connections: Helping children to see relationships and inconsistencies. This skill is crucial for developing analytical thinking. Teachers contribute to and extend children’s thinking by comparing their experiences and ideas.

Modelling: Demonstrating a skill or routine. This method provides a clear example for children to emulate. Teachers gradually release responsibility so children can practice and master the skill or routine.

Narrating: This allows children to be the expert of their play and increases vocabulary. Narration can enhance language development and comprehension. Narrate what the child is doing without inputting your ideas through questioning “You are making curly lines with the blue crayon”.

Negotiating: Working with children to consider their own and others’ perspectives, and develop problem-solving strategies and solutions that cater to the different perspectives. This process fosters collaboration and mutual understanding.

Positioning: Placing objects or yourself in particular areas. Strategic positioning can influence learning outcomes. You may intentionally place different objects together to promote a learning objective.

Project-based learning: Acquire knowledge and skills by working on a project over a period of time. This approach encourages deep engagement and practical application of skills.

Prompting recall: Reinforce concepts, solve problems, report on observations, or develop concentration. Memory recall is a key component of learning. “Do you remember what happened when you tried this?”

Providing choice: Recognizing children’s agency by offering opportunities for children to make safe choices and experience the consequences of their actions. This practice supports autonomy and decision-making skills. Provisions for choice need to be considered in the context of relationships and should not place children at risk or in danger. Supporting children to make choices encourages autonomy and independence.

Questioning: Open-ended questioning can be used to extend children’s thinking and problem-solving. This technique encourages exploration and discovery. Teachers emphasize reasoning and willingness to change thinking when gaining information from questioning.

Reflecting: Guiding children to reflect on their day and their learning experiences, and to engage in thinking that helps them to build on prior learning. Reflection is a powerful tool for self-assessment and growth. The process of reflection is strengthened by engaging in high-quality verbal interactions about current learning and what comes next for each child.

Repeating child’s language: This practice validates the child’s communication and encourages further dialogue.

Researching: Helping children to gather information to find solutions to problems. Researching involves asking questions and using a range of sources. This skill is essential for lifelong learning.

Responding to cues: Accurately responding to each infant’s pattern of sleep, hunger, alertness, and need for comfort. This responsiveness builds trust and security.

Role play: Role plays involve practicing communication skills and discovering what works personally for an individual and what does not work. This method enhances social skills and empathy. Children and educators can engage in role play.

Scaffolding: Providing children with a supportive framework for taking the next steps or moving to a higher level of thinking. Scaffolding bridges the gap between current and potential abilities. Teachers use their knowledge of children’s strengths, interests, ideas, and needs to break down skills and routines to guide each child.

Serve and return: When an infant or young child babbles, gestures, or cries, and an adult responds appropriately with eye contact, words, or a hug, neural connections are built and strengthened in the child’s brain that support the development of communication and social skills. This interaction is foundational for healthy development.

Suggesting: This involves offering children advice, ideas, and recommendations about what to do next. Suggestions can inspire creativity and exploration.

Sustained shared thinking: Sustained shared thinking occurs when educators support the development of children’s complex thinking and problem-solving skills by engaging children in open-ended and exploratory conversations. This approach deepens understanding and fosters intellectual growth.

Please note these are only some possible strategies that you may wish to use. Consider incorporating diverse cultural contexts and knowledge (i.e., indigenous perspectives of play and resources) that may not be listed here.